Thursday, October 9, 2014

Weddings


The Rad Trad just saw the strangest wedding rehearsal of his life while in the Confession line. The priest told the people what to do and then told them that he would be "inviting" them to do those same things during the wedding proper: "at this point you sit down" everyone sits "and tomorrow I will invite everyone to sit down at this point." I sat aghast when he said, "Now, we'll begin with 'May the grace of our.... be with you' and you reply 'And with your spirit'." Call me old fashioned, but I would have assumed that they already knew! He also reminded them not to miss the people on the other side of the aisle during the handshake sign of peace. 

We always discuss how the Ordo Missae changed, along with the lectionary and ordination rites. Some, like myself, talk about more specific things like Holy Week. Few think about just how deep the changes went: Baptism and Marriage are really very bare and insipid now. I know a Melkite priest who absolutely loves the old Baptism rite and absolutely detests the new one. I hear nonsense like "as they come to share their love with us" I thought "Strange, I was under the impression God was confirming His love in a Sacrament." The old blessing of the ring was brief and to the point: "Bless O Lord, this ring, which we are blessing in Thy name, so that she who wears it, keeping faith with her husband in unbroken loyalty, may ever remain at peace with Thee, obedient to Thy will, and may live with him always in mutual love. Through Christ our Lord." The new blessing is long winded, self-referential, and vague:
"Lord, bless these rings which we bless in your name. Grant that those who wear them may always have a deep faith in each other. May they do your will and always live together in peace, good will, and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord.."
They clearly are not doing a Mass, but the abbreviated service. I think the groom is not a Catholic. Still, the point stands. And all the little bits and bobs for people to do (readings, bidding prayers, holding the rings, "witnesses"—as though the 150+ people in attendance are deaf, dumb, and blind), it is as if attending is not enough. I have been to a few secular wedding services and none of them were as high maintenance as a wedding according to the Pauline books. I was last in a wedding in 2012 as a groomsman. I escorted a bridesmaid and the bride's mother down the aisle prior to Mass, bought the champagne for the reception, and read from Genesis in a very low key way. The wedding was well done, but the exception in that. Nowadays, most weddings are formalized family pageants and God happens to be in attendance.

I nearly flipped when the priest inserted "You may not kiss the bride" and abjured the groom-to-be for not making it long enough.

15 comments:

  1. A very good friend of mine was an organist for a Roman Catholic parish, she could take it no more and was more or less asked to leave, these were the two stones, as it were, that broke the camels back:
    1. One Sunday before Mass, when the church was virtually empty, she decided to play some classical pieces, the priest rushed to the organ loft and demanded that she stop, because "that is not the image of the Church of the Poor.
    2. She had to play "Hello Dolly" as a bridal march, because the brides name was Dolly.

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  2. I was at a wedding about a year or so ago where the priest had to remind people, during Mass, when to sit or stand, because most of them were acting as though they'd never been to Mass. Not a few guests were angry with the priest because there was no kissing of the bride. *shrug*

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  4. I myself was married in 2012 (my user icon is from my wedding day). At the time I knew barely an iota about liturgy compared to now, but in spite of that, I think it was a tasteful and reverent ceremony. It was according to the post-conciliar Rite of Marriage. The homily was focused on the sacrificial love of Christ constituting the Sacraments, we knelt and received Holy Communion on the tongue whilst Panis Angelicus was sung with organ, and our priest never had to stop and tell people when to sit, stand, or kneel.

    If my wedding were today I would probably want it in the Byzantine rite, or at least in the Extraordinary Form with chants from the Roman Gradual. However I have no regrets with how it was.

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    1. Our wedding was EF, with chants from the Roman Gradual. As the bride came into the church the choir sang Concordi laetitia; at the end of Mass, Sub tuum praesidium. We did get a polyphonic motet at the offertory, but that was snuck in there by the choir.

      I envy Byzantine weddings; heck, any other rite that has the crowning service. The Roman matrimonial rite seems lacking in symbolism when compared to others, though truth be told the location(s) of the couple during the rite are not without their significance, and I think are many times overlooked.

      As a sidenote, the Bragan votive nuptial Mass has a rubric at the end which I particularly like. The priest is to place the bride's right hand in the groom's right hand and says:

      Frate, accipe conjugm tuam, et delige eam ut carnem tuam. Et trado tibi uxorem et non ancillam: tu autem custodi et dilige eam sicut Christus Ecclesiam: et ambulate in Pace. In nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

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    2. Last summer I was best-man for a "Catholic" wedding in France. No one even knew how to make the sign-of-the-cross. The wedding wondered on for about 45 minutes with the speak speaking about "love"; no communion, no vestments, the ancient village church had been stripped bare during the 1960's...not even a crucifix; the "altar" was a black box. The lack of seriousness and dignity was appalling. The only consolation was that the civic ceremony at the town hall (in France everyone must be married in a civic ceremony) by comparison was dignified and traditional. Personally, I could easily have skipped the church wedding.

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    3. Sorry, "with the priest speaking about 'Love...'"

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  5. I tend to fine that two of the most common wedding music selections are Schubert's Ave Maria and Pachelbel's Canon in D (or some corrupted version thereof). My wedding (if I ever marry) will be full with medieval chant and nothing else.

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    1. I favor Arcadelt's Ave Maria if the setting must be choral. Whenever I head Schubert's, I immediately think of bad Italian art! It really is overplayed.

      I hope your wedding has no Gloria and ends with Benedicamus Domino!

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    2. I'm putting much stock and careful planning into my 25th. anniversary Mass to rectify the original, though we did the best we could, under the particular circumstances at the time, with the Pauline books. 11 years down, 14 to go.

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  6. As a curious aside, why did the Nuptial Mass exclude the Gloria?

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    1. Maybe their choices were no Gloria or the David Haas version?

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  7. My wedding to Mrs Bold will take place in Santa Maria Maggiore celebrated by no one less than the Cardinal Archpriest himself assisted by the Canons. Preceded by the Bedellus, I will proceed to the Quire attended by Knights of St Judas, while Mrs Bold will be attended by Dames of Blessed Dives. Dr Grantly, after having joined the Ordinariate, was made Protonotary Apostolic, and will give Mrs Bold away. The Introit, Grail, Alleluia, etc will be by Harding,naturally, while the Epistle, a lesser known pericope from Pseudo-Bunyan. After the Blessing, we will proceed to the Borghese Chapel where the choral-scholars of my college, Lazarus, will sing the Vivats.

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  8. though the nuptial rite of Rome in itself is rather stark and legalistic, many customs developed to accentuate it in the Medieval uses, such as Sarum. My own weeding was a TLM three years ago: my wife and I were married at the gates, but entered the sanctuary at the antiphon "confirma" and knelt at the altar steps for the first blessing. We then sat in the sanctuary, but in choir, rather than front and center obstructing the ceremony. At the nuptial blessing, we again knelt in the sanctuary as a canopy was held over us by four clerics, and at the Pax, the subdeacon brought a pax-brede to me which I kissed and then kissed my wife, saying "pax tibi" (the origin of the wedding kiss.) In the vestibule, the celebrant blessed a cup of wine and a loaf of bread, and we both dipped a morsel of the bread into the wine and fed it to each other (the origin of the cake cutting ceremony.) It didn't hurt that i was the MC of this parish and could incorporate these features straight from the Sarum Missal.

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